La belle France

On Friday (26th) the Band sets off on a trip to Coldstream's twin town, Bennecourt, France. Situated on the border between Normandy and Ille de France, on the banks of the River Seine, it is a lovely place.

Compared to some twin town arrangements, this one is spot on; both towns are agricultural, relatively close to big cities and close enough to less prosperous towns to remind the residents how lucky they are - Bennecourt has Bonniere-sur-Seine and we have Duns. (before Huttonian takes grave offence, that gag works both ways).

Close by Bennecourt is Giverny, home to Claud Monet and his famous garden. http://giverny.org/monet/welcome.htm

And if you fall in the river at Bennecourt you really are in-seine! Ha ha! (copyright Spike Milligan).

Here are some memories from past trips to Bennecourt.

Booking list

A reminder of the bookings remaining this year:

June
26th: Bennecourt trip (France)

July
18th: Kelso Civic Week

August
2nd: Civic Week Opening Ceremony
3rd: Norham Ride
6th: Flodden Day
7th: Torchlight
8th: Fancy Dress, Beating Retreat

30th
Massed Bands, Floors Castle

November
8th: Remembrance Day

Hawick Highland Games

The most fun seen at Mansfield Park this season: the Massed Bands led by James!

Peebles Beltane Festival

The past weekend was a busy one for the band with the Peebles Beltane Parade on Saturday and Hawick Highland Games on Sunday.

The Beltane fancy dress parade has been an annual fixture in the band's roster for any number of years and, 'incidents' with fire extinguishers apart, has always been a quiet and reflective event. More about the Beltane here: http://www.returntotheridings.co.uk/peebles.html

Check out the band playing up the High Street of Peebles: the camera-person seems very focused on the Drum Major! The drummers are clear winners of the Dress & Deportment award.

Jim Clark Rally

This years rally ran from 22-24 May. The Band was asked to play in Duns for the finale of the event and were more than happy to do so. Info about the rally here: http://www.jimclarkrally.com/

Trip to Brymbo - the truth at last!

This report of the trip to Wales from Ian Cockburn;

I hope you all enjoyed Coldstream Pipe Band’s first trip to Wales last Weekend.
The concert performance on Saturday night was excellent. All that practicing on Monday nights certainly paid off. This should also set us up for the rest of the year.
Ged took a video of the concert and lots of photos so we will try to arrange a showing of the video and photos sometime in the future. This will probably be after the trip to France so we can cover both trips on the same night.
For those of you who couldn’t make it to Wales this is a brief summary of what went on.
The band played on Saturday afternoon in Wrexham along with the French band from that came to Coldstream, the Corps of drums and the Welsh choir. The Mayor of Wrexham was present at this event. James presented a bottle of Whisky to the Mayor on behalf of the Pipe Band.
The main event of the weekend was the concert in Brymbo. The Pipe Band opened the concert and were followed by the Corps of drums, the French band and the Welsh choir. The grand finale featured all of the acts together.
The concert was certainly the highlight of the weekend but the most bizarre event was when the Pipe Major (along with a couple of Welsh guys) was declared to be A Knight of the Brotherhood of the Maroilles cheese. Four officials from the Brotherhood had made the trip from France to bestow this great honour upon the Pipe Major (who shall now be known as Sir Cheesy). Sir Cheesy was presented with a certificate and a medal (which he wore for the rest of the weekend).
Someone left a cushion behind when we got off the bus. The cushion is in the Besom (having a pint!!!) and can be collected there.

After the trip we received this message from Alwena Hughes:

Hi James

Hope you all arrived home fairly sober but I very much doubt it,

We would like to thank you once again for the part you all played in helping to make the weekend

so brilliant , it was even better than we had even imagined.

Also would you pass on our thanks to the Guards for the part they played, we hope that the choir will be able

to meet again for another performance some time again.

Keep in touch

Best Wishes
Alwena

Parade in Wrexham

Wrexham is a small village near Brymbo. It is a quiet place, with welcoming pubs and hostelries that cater to all tastes!

Evening Concert in Brymbo

The evening concert in Brymbo was a great success. Lots of hard work on practice nights paid off with the band giving a performance that was a real crowd pleaser. The whole night was entertaining and diverse; the Brymbo male voice choir were on great form, the Brigade of Guards Corps of Drums were rousing and our French guests also entertaining.

Rob Bell 'Le grande fromage'

As if to prove he is a big cheese, Rob Bell was created a Captain of the Honourable Enthusiasts for Drinking, Dancing and Rooting (CHEDDAR) and a Brother of the Order of Ancient Cheesy Komestibles (BOACK) during the evening concert we gave in Brymbo.

Welsh Tour to Brymbo

We were delighted to be invited to Brymbo by the local Male Voice Choir, who we met at the 2008 Thierache cheese festival. The trip took place over the May Bank Holiday. Lots of fun was had and good sounds created.

Cockburnspath Gala Day

The band played at Cockburnspath on 13th June for the village's Gala Day. Rain stopped play mid-afternoon, but a good band was playing well when the rain held off.

Bob at 70

Bob Lillie was 70 on 15th June. We salute you Bob!

2009 Bookings

May
1st: Trip to Wales
31st: Border Gaethrin

June
13th: Gala Day, Cockburnspath
20th: Beltane Festival, Peebles
21st: Highland Games, Hawick
26th: Trip to Bennecourt, France

July
18th: Civic Week, Kelso

August: Coldstream Civic Week
2nd: Opening Ceremony
3rd: Norham Rideout
6th: Flodden Day
7th: Torchlight Procession
8th: Fancy Dress & Beating Retreat

30th: Massed Bands, Floors Castle

November
8th: Remembrance Day

Normal service resumed

Apologies for the twelve month hiatus in updates on the activities of the band. We have now resorted to the previous management in a hope that we can keep things going with regular news, etc.

A booking list will follow shortly.

Meantine, here's a pic of the Tartan Pimpernel with some of our good friends from the Corps of Drums. You'll remember that we began our association with the Corps during the 2008 Civic Week. We took things a stage further by inviting the Corps to our visit to Wrexham over the May bank holiday. Pictures of this visit to follow.

Civc Week on YouTube

Some vids on the YouTube site:

Civic Week 2008

James and Duncan messing about with the Yorkshire Corps of Drums. http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=27ZrMRW1Wzs

The Yorkshire Corps of Drums seem a great bunch of lads; here's a link to their website: http://www.yorkshirecorpsofdrums.com/

And here's them leading the 40th anniversary of the Coldstream Guards receiving the freedom of the burgh. http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=-DSeDJKS9-E&feature=related

The Flodden ride out leaving town in a downpour. http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=XAVcxu_YgeM&feature=related

Civic Week 2005

Video of the Beating of the Retreat from 2005:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=mBFgT8eLW7w&feature=related

Surfing the web

There is a game played by all office workers called 'ego-surf'. This is where you put your own name into Google and see what comes up.

I appreciate that this only confirms the view of 'real' workers that those sitting at desks are feckless, idle, chancers. But, I thought so what, here we go with a new game called 'band-surf':

Rob Bell: see http://www.rob-bell.co.uk/ (this is a bit spooky)

Ian Cockburn: see http://people.bu.edu/cockburn/ (he is looking older these days. Does Carol know?)

Logan Parsons: http://www.parsonsillustration.com/

Gordon Thompson: http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/Music/PopularMusic/PopRockPopularCulture/?view=usa&ci=9780195333251 (More talented than he appears!)

Pierre Scoot: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7565757678708976268

James Bell: http://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&id=u0zG2DyIFE8C&dq=james+bell&printsec=frontcover&source=web&ots=LYndtMCxSi&sig=xc5UhccEOtGSQTnX9ZH6GtFc460&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result (This explains a lot)

Duncan Bell: http://www.pokerpages.com/players/profiles/46013/duncan-bell.htm

Floors Catle massed bands 25th August

A big band had a good day out. Two of the younger members particularly enjoyed themselves.

"When the music was good it was good, but when it was bad it was very bad". That about sums up the day.

Clearly a bit of work is needed to get the music more polished. Although the crowd seemed happy with what they saw and heard, the players knew better. The Pipe Major's will need to look again at how the event is run, placing all the responsibility on one Drum Major is tough going, particularly when the perfomance and confidence of the players is poor.

Corstorphine Fair

The Fair was held on 7th June. it's taken a while to track down some images, but here they are; click on the link: Corstorphine Fair 2008

Kelso Civic Week

Two pictures of the Fancy Dress parade on the 19th of July, last night of Kelso Civic Week. (Kelso is a small village near Coldstream).

Pictures borrowed from Pitchoun8 from the Flickr website. (http://www.flickr.com/photos/pitchoun8/sets/). Worth looking at some very good images here.

Fancy Dress was very good and the band were playing well.

Hawick Highland Games

Pictures courtesy of Cessna152towser from the FlickR picture database. And a video of the Band playing Highland Cathedral here: http://s22.photobucket.com/albums/b345/cessna152towser/dumfries/?action=view&current=S8305876.flv

Corstorphine Fair

Thanks to everyone who attended Corstorphine Fair.

We did very well thanks in particular to Rebecca, Louise and Sophie who were making their Pipe Band debuts. (See photo).

More at http://www.corstorphinefair.org.uk/

First Post

April is a bit tardy to be updating the blog for the first time in'08, but as the season begins it's a good point to remind ourselves what's been happening.

Thanks to Scott and Laura Melville, the couple who booked us for their wedding at Ford Castle, for their kind comments - it was a pleasure to play for you.

Next up is Pipey Bell in the Berwick Advertiser helping a French couple get married: http://www.berwick-advertiser.co.uk/news/First-French-couple-to-marry.3820700.jp Photo above.

Bob Liddle, one of our musical virtuoso's, has a new website at http://robertliddle939.art.officelive.com/default.aspx. Bob has some good pics of the band on his site.

Gareth has been installed as this years Coldstreamer, congratulations to him. More at http://www.berwickshire-news.co.uk/news/Gareth-installed-as-2008-Coldstreamer.3987498.jp. He also has a Bebo site at http://www.bebo.com/Profile.jsp?MemberId=4488852705 with some good pictures of the band, one from Flodden Day above.

And finally, a review of our trip to Ortiguera has emerged, see here http://www.folkworld.de/22/e/ortigue.html

That's all for now, more soon.

On the 14th December in the Heart of Hawick (http://www.scotborders.gov.uk/council/specialinterest/heartofhawick/21353.html) at 7:30pm the Borders Pipes album will be released.

It is the 5th CD in the Borders Traditions series supported by the Scottish Borders Council and Scottish Arts Service.

Dr. Fred Freeman will present the concert which will include all four pipers and their accompanists.

Border Reivers

Who says the Reivers are gone? From today's Berwickhire News:


Sheep rustling at Grantshouse
Large number of ewe lambs stolen


A LARGE number of Lleyn ewe lambs have been stolen from Penmanshiel Farm near Grantshouse.
The ewes all had yellow ear tags which had the flock number on them. Police are appealing for anyone with information to contact their local station.

New web site for Borders

A very good new site has been created for the Borders and North Northumberland. Seems a welcome addition to the www and without petty politics.

See here: http://www.borderschat.com/